The Creations And Inspirations Of An Intuitive Artist

Posts Tagged ‘upcycle’

My main altar shrine space in my house is full of colour, crystals, candles and things that I find inspiring reminders of my spirituality. For my desk altar I wanted something cleaner, purer and simpler since my studio space and desk itself gets cluttered enough already.

It took a couple of sessions with the gouache paints but I’m pleased with how it turned out in the end. Simple knotwork with just a little blending of two tones of purple and green (my two favourite colours).

And here it is with a few bits on it. The candles were a sale find in Sainsbury’s from their winter collection, a hagstone, crystal, seed pod and a small glass bowl complete the set up. I like to have a candle on each side of my altars/shrines which is why I only painted the central area of the back.

For a while now I’ve been on the look out for a small surface to use as an altar/shrine on my desk in my studio to no avail. Finding something that fit what I wanted was proving to be a difficult and frustrating task. As often is the case when this happens I asked the Universe for a little help and this is what I found.

The white box (pictured above) was in the sale in TK Maxx.

It was the perfect size for my desk space and had a hinged lid for storing some candles, crystals and trinkets but it needed some work. I didn’t like the three dimensional rose motif on it which was broken anyway, hence it being in the sale:

The rest of the box thought was just right. I’m not normally a person that revamps or upcycles furniture but I couldn’t resist this gift and for an altar space I decided I was willing to put in the time and effort.

It turned out that the rose motif wasn’t just stuck on with glue as I originally thought but pinned in. Once off I had to snip the remaining metal prongs that I couldn’t pull out, sand the rough edges down and then use a filling paste to even out the area for several coats of white primer as I want to paint my own spiritual motifs on the back board.

Not too bad for a first time try and ready for decoration. Now that we have moved house and settled I can finally pick the project back up again. I know exactly what I want on it but that will come in part 2.